Katamon

Katamon or Qatamon (Hebrew: קטמון; Arabic: قطمون, romanized: Qaṭamūn; Greek: Καταμόνας, romanized: Katamónas; from the Ancient Greek κατὰ τῷ μοναστηρίῳ, katà tôi monastēríōi, 'by the monastery'), officially known as Gonen (Hebrew: גּוֹנֵן, lit. 'Defender'; mainly used in municipal publications), is a neighborhood in south-central Jerusalem. It is built next to an old Greek Orthodox monastery, believed to have been constructed on the home and the tomb of Simeon from the Gospel of Luke. The neighborhood was established in the early 1900s, shortly before World War I, as a wealthy, predominantly Palestinian Christian neighborhood. During the 1947–48 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, the local population fled the intense fighting in the area and were not allowed to return by the new Israeli state. Instead Katamon was soon repopulated by Jewish refugees.